


The Scroll of the Dead

by pigeonking



Category: Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 15:31:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10415268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonking/pseuds/pigeonking
Summary: I thought it might be fun to have the 8th Doctor meet Anthony Ainley's Master. I also got to tell a story that has been knocking about in my imagination for years now... How would soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars era cope against zombies? This is how...





	

Fitz Kreiner was woken by the crow of the cockerel for the sixth consecutive morning at the ungodly hour of six fifteen. He’d asked the Doctor on the second day if they could cook the feather-brained annoyance, but unsurprisingly the Doctor had refused. What was the point of being on holiday if you couldn’t get a decent lie in! Fitz had grumbled.

“You can always sleep in your room in the TARDIS.” The Doctor had told him with a mischievous grin.

Fitz had just walked away muttering a few choice expletives under his breath.

Of all the places to choose for a holiday, Spain in 1812 in the midst of the Napoleonic wars would not have been top of Fitz’s list, but when given the choice between that or the Eye of bloody Orion, there was really no contest.

The Doctor had hovered the TARDIS in space before landing, scanning for a villa that had been abandoned by its owners, but that still lay far enough away from the fighting to be considered safe.

Once he had located one he had materialised the TARDIS within the villa’s wine cellar and he, Fitz and Anji Kapoor had been living it up (such as it were) ever since.

Fitz was a young man in his late twenties with short brown hair. Normally he liked swanning around in his jeans and a leather jacket, but while on this holiday he and Anji had made an effort to dress in comfortable period clothing, just to keep up appearances. Though since they had been there they had barely seen another living soul apart from the chickens and cats that lived around the villa… and that bloody cockerel!

Fitz stalked sleepily onto the veranda and looked out into the villa’s gardens. True to form, Anji was already up, sat outside with the skirts of her dress rolled up so that she could catch the early rays of the morning sun on her shapely brown legs. She was an attractive young British-Indian woman, also in her late twenties, with shoulder length black hair and soulful brown eyes.

Unlike Fitz she didn’t seem to mind the early wake up call. By the looks of it she had been up well before then anyway.

“Morning, Anji!” he called down from the veranda. “Any sign of the Doctor yet this morning?”

Anji squinted up at him through her fingers, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“He said something to me about being only half way through the complete works of J. K. Rowling and that he wanted to try and finish it today. Last I saw he was walking off that way with an armful of books and a picnic basket draped over one arm.” Anji waved her hand in a general left direction.

“He told me that he wasn’t going to cheat and that he was going to read them all at a human pace. There’s no way he’ll be finished by the end of the day!” Fitz remarked. “Have you seen my cigarettes?”

“Try looking in your pockets.” Anji called back. “And it would help if you put some clothes on. No one wants to see your Bratwurst and meatballs first thing in the morning!”

“Sorry!” Fitz blushed with a cheeky grin before turning and heading back to get dressed.

The Doctor had found a nice shady spot under a weeping willow tree to read his books and enjoy his picnic breakfast of bacon and egg sandwiches washed down with a flask of tea.

He was dressed in white shirt sleeves and a velvet brown waist coat and light brown trousers. His trademark green velvet jacket had been left in the TARDIS as a concession to the hot Spanish sun.

At the moment he was struggling to maintain the human pace he had told Fitz he would be reading at for the duration of this little holiday. It was so tempting to skim read at Time Lord velocity and breeze through the books, but some things were worth doing slowly and old J. K. was one of them. He still had about fifty-two books to read out of the two hundred she had written in her life time. With that taken into consideration the Doctor felt that he had done quite well. He was now half way into the second book in the son of Harry Potter trilogy.

The Doctor’s quiet reading was rudely interrupted by the barrel of a flintlock pistol prodded into his face.

“Do not move.” Said a French accented voice. “I do not want to kill you.”

The Doctor looked up from his book at the French infantry officer that stood over him with the pistol. He was not alone and had around six other blue coated French soldiers with him. They all, the officer included, looked rather battered and scruffy, but most of all they looked scared and desperate.

“That’s very good.” The Doctor smiled disarmingly. “Because I don’t want you to kill me either.”

“The villa nearby.” The officer continued. “It is yours?”

“Not exactly.” The Doctor replied. “My friends and I are just looking after it while the owners are away.”

“You will take us there now.” The officer demanded.

“Now hang on a minute!” the Doctor protested. “I think we’ve got off on the wrong foot here. We haven’t even been introduced! Who are you and exactly why should I be taking you back to the villa? You’re frightened of something. Are you hiding from British patrols? Partisans?”

“I do not have time for this!” the officer growled angrily. “Monsieur, I promise you. Once we are safely back in your villa I will happily try to explain everything if I can, but right now we need to go! Please!”

It was that last word, ‘please’, which made up the Doctor’s mind. This man was so frightened that he was no longer demanding, but begging to be taken to the villa.

“Alright, follow me, but if you wouldn’t mind helping me carry my books back?” the Doctor got up quickly as he spoke, snapping shut his book and taking up the picnic basket.

At a signal from their commanding officer the French soldiers gathered up the rest of the Doctor’s books and then together they headed off back to the villa.

They were about halfway to the villa when what appeared to be a British redcoat soldier exploded out of the bushes, snarling and hissing like a wild animal. What was odd about this recoat was that he was not wearing the trademark black shako of the British infantry of that era and he was not carrying a musket. His uniform looked torn and it was then that the Doctor realised that a loop of the soldier’s intestines was dangling from a nasty rent in his abdomen like a sickeningly putrid pendulum.

The immediate response of the French soldiers was to turn their muskets upon this feral man-shaped monstrosity and open fire. Four of the six musket balls struck their target in the upper and lower torso. The soldier did not fall, however, but merely staggered back a few paces before continuing his approach.

“Run!” the Doctor yelled.

The French soldiers did not need telling twice and they all ran the rest of the way to the villa.

Fitz and Anji were in the villa’s garden, alert and waiting when the Doctor arrived with his entourage of French infantry.

“What’s happening? We heard gunfire and who are these people?” Anji wondered.

“No time to explain now. Everyone into the villa and start barricading all the doors and windows.” The Doctor replied urgently.

He ushered the soldiers into the villa who were closely followed by Fitz and Anji. Before he joined them the Doctor looked back the way they had come from. He saw the wounded redcoat that had attacked them, but he was not alone. Now he had been joined by dozens of other ragged and battered looking men. Some in British uniforms, some French, some Spanish or Portuguese. All of them looked like they should be dead rather than walking around, with visible wounds on their bodies or arms missing. There were even a few legless ones crawling along amidst the oncoming horde. They were all heading straight for the villa.

The Doctor quickly ran into the villa and closed the door behind him. Fitz was there in an instant, placing some planks of wood against the door and hammering nails into them.

“Care to explain what the bloody hell’s going on, Doctor?” he asked.

“Let’s go and ask our guests shall we.” The Doctor replied and he went to look for the French officer.

They found him helping one of his soldiers to barricade the back entrance.

“Right, sir, I think it’s time for you to explain exactly what is going on.” The Doctor said to the Frenchman as he drew him to one side.

The officer looked at the Doctor and then at Fitz before nodding his consent.

“Very well, Monsieurs.” He said simply. “Considering the circumstances I believe you deserve a full explanation… as far as I am able to give one.”

“Go on.” The Doctor prompted.

“My men and I were part of a larger contingent of infantry that had been sent into the hills to hunt for a party of partisans that had been harassing our camp and inflicting many casualties upon us.

We wish we had found them, but instead we encountered the army of dead soldiers that are now pursuing us. They appeared as if from nowhere and descended upon us. My commanding officer was killed along with many of our men. We tried to fight back, but our musket balls and bayonets had no effect upon them. How could we kill those that were already dead? My self and the six men you see with me are all that managed to get away, but the dead have pursued us all the way. I am truly sorry to bring this on your doorstep, but if there is any chance that we are going to walk away from this my men need time to regroup and we need to come up with a plan of action.” The officer explained.

“It just so happens that this is your lucky day.” The Doctor beamed.

“It is?” the officer frowned in puzzlement.

“Yes. You see, I’m the Doctor and this is the sort of thing that I deal with all the time. If there’s anyone that can help you get out of this alive, then it’s me.” The Doctor told him.

“He’s also incredibly modest, as you might have noticed.” Fitz added with a wink.

“I’m sorry… I have not introduced myself. I am Lieutenant Pierre Charron. If you truly believe that you can help us then we will certainly be grateful for it.” The Lieutenant replied.

“Excellent, Pierre!” the Doctor smiled. “This here is my good friend Fitz Kreiner and the lady you saw is Anji Kapoor. Now is there anything else you can tell us about these dead people that you haven’t already mentioned… apart from the whole unkillable thing?”

“There is something.” Pierre nodded. “I believe the dead are being controlled by someone alive. There was a British colonel that rode behind them on a horse. He seemed to be alive and took great pleasure in watching our men die. He even laughed as if it were sport that he was watching and not murder!”

The Doctor was about to question Pierre further about this mysterious colonel when Anji ran in.

“All hands on deck!” she called. “Those things are here and they’re trying to get in!”

The Doctor, Fitz, Pierre and the soldier followed Anji to the front of the villa into the hallway. When they got there they could hear the undead army outside moaning and banging to get in. A couple of the lower front windows were smashed instantly, but thanks to the hastily erected barricades the creatures could get no further, for the time being at least. The Doctor knew, however, that the barricades would not last indefinitely. This could not become a prolonged siege. They needed to deal with this problem fast.

“The TARDIS is downstairs in the cellar.” Fitz reminded the Doctor. “Couldn’t we all just get in it and escape that way?”

“That would save us, but it wouldn’t take care of those dead things. They’d still be at large to endanger someone else.” The Doctor replied. “No, we must stay and fight and see if we can’t stop this problem from spreading.”

“But how do we fight them, Doctor? We cannot kill them!” Pierre protested.

“Perhaps the solution lies in whoever is controlling them. Which means that we need to get out there and get hold of that colonel.” The Doctor said.

“You mean if we kill this colonel, we might kill them?” Pierre asked.

“Not exactly, but he might hold the key to stopping them. If he’s the one that gave them life then he should also be able return them to death.” The Doctor mused.

“So we need him alive then?” Fitz said though it was a question he already knew the answer to.

The Doctor nodded. “We need him alive.” He grinned. “Any volunteers to go out and get him?”

“You certainly have my sword, Doctor.” Pierre offered without hesitation.

“Very kind of you, Pierre, but I need you to stay here and co-ordinate our defence. I think Fitz and I should do this ourselves.” The Doctor decided.

“Oh thanks ever so much for volunteering me, Doctor!” Fitz smirked sarcastically.

“But how can we defend ourselves?” Pierre protested. “We cannot kill them!”

“Anyone that is familiar with the works of George Romero will know that the best way to kill the walking dead is to shoot them in the head. It can’t hurt to try it.” The Doctor smiled grimly.

“Perhaps I should try reading this George Romero sometime. Very well, Doctor… leave it with me.” Pierre nodded.

“That’s the spirit, Lieutenant.” The Doctor patted him heartily on the back. “Come along, Fitz… let’s go and catch us a colonel!”

The Doctor and Fitz raced off to the back of the villa.

“Be careful you two!” Anji called after them.

“Right!” Pierre shouted to his men. “You heard what the Doctor said. Shoot them in the head. Let’s see if we can’t start thinning their ranks a bit, eh?”

“Lieutenant, I think you should come and look at this!” Pierre’s second-in-command, Sergeant Lavigne, called him over.

Pierre crossed to his Sergeant’s side and peered through the boarded window at the swarming creatures outside.

“Mon dieu!” he exclaimed in horror.

Staring back at him, ravenously trying to claw through the barricades with shredded, bloodied fingernails was the face of his form commanding officer, Colonel Guillory.

“It seems we must face our old comrades as well.” Lavigne observed grimly.

“Indeed, Sergeant. But let this not stay our hand, for in returning our old friends to death we will be doing them a great service and giving them peace, non?” Pierre replied.

“Indeed we shall, sir!” Lavigne agreed.

“Then let’s give these poor devils peace!” Pierre declared. He took out his pistol and aimed it through a crack in the barricade. With a squeeze of the trigger he discharged a pistol ball into his former colonel’s head… and the thing that had once been Colonel Guillory fell back into the horde with a bloody hole in its forehead and didn’t get back up again.

“It works!” Lavigne exclaimed. “Open fire, boys!”

The soldiers took aim at selected targets with their muskets and fired.

“Reload!”

 

The mysterious British Colonel saw the dead French colonel fall back with his brains blown out, from his vantage point on his horse at the back of the undead horde.

So the French primitives had figured out how to kill his army. Not that it would do them any good. They were still greatly outnumbered and would probably run out of ammunition long before he ran out of zombies. Their fate was sealed. The colonel laughed.

 

“Do you think we’re ever going to have a proper holiday without monsters?” Fitz asked the Doctor as they made their way through the trees and circled round the back of the undead horde undetected.

“We didn’t encounter any monsters on the Eye of Orion.” The Doctor pointed out.

“I said a proper holiday!” Fitz threw back with a mischievous twinkle.

“Touché!” the Doctor grinned.

Finally the Doctor spotted their quarry through the trees. The man on the horse was dressed in the full uniform of a British infantry colonel, complete with a sword hanging from a scabbard at his hip. All that was missing was the tall, grand hat on his head. This only enabled the Doctor to make out the colonel’s features more clearly. His short black hair and his neatly trimmed black goatee and the cold, calculating eyes of a predator.

“It can’t be!” the Doctor exclaimed in amazement.

“Don’t tell me that you actually know who that is!” Fitz said with equal astonishment.

“I’m afraid I do, but I never thought I’d see him looking like that again!” the Doctor replied.

“Looking like what? What are you barking on about, Doctor?” Fitz asked.

“That, my dear Fitz, is an old friend of mine. He likes to be referred to as the Master!” the Doctor explained.

“Bit full of himself then, is he?” Fitz replied.

“Understatement of several centuries I believe.” The Doctor smirked.

“So what’s he doing here?” Fitz wondered.

“I don’t know.” The Doctor admitted. He began to walk forward out of the trees. “Let’s go and ask him.”

“Doctor, are you mad???” Fitz protested, but he followed nonetheless. “We can’t just walk out there without a plan!”

“Why not?” the Doctor asked. “It’s what I’m good at.”

So far the Master had not spotted the Doctor and Fitz as they emerged from the trees.

“Master, over here!” the Doctor called.

The Master turned with his horse to observe the approach of these two strange men. Then he looked into the eyes of the man with the long brown hair and the waistcoat.

“Doctor? Is that you?” the Master smiled warmly, genuinely pleased as well as surprised to see his old friend.

“Yes. It’s me. I’ve regenerated since you last saw me. I see from your eyes that you must have barely escaped the Cheetah Planet before it was destroyed.” The Doctor observed, taking in the Master’s yellow cat-like eyes.

“If we fight like animals, we die like animals. That was what you said to me, Doctor. Those words must have sunk into me on some level because it gave me the power to transport myself away from the planet before it tore itself apart and I found myself back at my TARDIS. The eyes are a side effect of my time among the Cheetah People.” The Master smiled wolfishly. “I rather like them!”

“They certainly suit your personality to a tee.” The Doctor agreed.

“Well, as pleased as I am to see you, Doctor, I was not expecting to run into you during this little experiment of mine. You need not concern yourself too much. Your precious planet Earth isn’t in any danger this time. As soon as I’ve killed these French soldiers I will return these creatures to their deaths and depart elsewhere.” The Master told him.

“You expect me to believe that all you’re interested in is the deaths of a handful of French soldiers. What did they do? Make fun of your beard? No, there’s more to this than that. And even if there isn’t, you don’t expect me to just stand by and let you slaughter those soldiers in cold blood?” the Doctor returned.

“I fail to see how you’re going to stop me, Doctor.” The Master smirked. “I suspect it was you that told them how to kill my little pets? It doesn’t matter…”

For a moment they were distracted as a number of the zombies had succeeded in breaking through the barricades and were now all trying to pile in through the unprotected windows.

“You see! Already they have gained access!” the Master exalted with a delighted grin. “Soon the soldiers will be overwhelmed by sheer numbers!”

“Anji!” the Doctor exclaimed in anguish.

 

Anji, Pierre, Lavigne and the other soldiers fell back as the marauding zombies poured through the splintered barricades and into the villa. A couple of muskets were discharged and the stricken zombies fell and lay still. Then there was no time to reload. The soldiers lunged at the heads of their undead attackers with their bayonets.

Thrust and withdraw, thrust and withdraw.

Even Anji was using the sword that Pierre had given her to stab at the encroaching creatures.

Very soon there was a considerable pile of dead zombies cluttering the space beneath the windows, but still the creatures kept coming.

“We can’t hold them all back. We must retreat.” Pierre shouted desperately.

As he spoke one of his men had his musket snatched from his hands before he was encircled and pulled down, screaming, by three zombies.

“Quickly into the cellar!” Anji ordered as she tugged the blade of the sword from another zombie’s brain. Her beautiful summer dress was now splashed with blood and brain tissue.

The Frenchmen followed Anji towards the kitchen where the door to the cellar was to be found.

All except one soldier who still stood in horror, watching as his former comrade who had just been pulled down, suddenly rose up again and advanced towards him, arms outstretched, fingers bent like talons.

“You will not hurt me, Luc.” The soldier protested. “You’re my best friend!”

The soldier did not flinch as his former friend lunged at him, the outstretched arms encircling him as if in an embrace.

“You see.” The soldier smiled as he returned the ‘embrace’. “I knew you could not hurt me.”

Then there was excruciating pain as Luc bit into his neck and tore his throat out with his teeth.

Pierre, standing in the doorway of the cellar had seen this horrific drama unfold, but he could not bear to watch as Luc bore his old friend to the floor and proceeded to devour him. The Lieutenant turned away and headed down the stairs to join Anji and the others.

The zombie horde advanced behind him.

 

“What are we going to do, Doctor?” Fitz asked helplessly as they watched the zombies pour into villa.

“Not a lot we can do.” The Doctor admitted bleakly. “Except this!”

Without warning the Doctor reached out and grabbed the Master’s leg and with an almighty tug he pulled the evil Time Lord from the saddle of his horse. Before the Master had time to recover the Doctor was upon him. With one good punch the Doctor rendered the Master insensible and then he began to riffle through the pockets of the Time Lord’s redcoat. He found two things of interest. A small black tube-like weapon and a scroll.

 

As Anji arrived into the cellar she dashed straight towards the welcoming shape of the TARDIS where it stood between two racks of fine Spanish wine that had been greatly depleted since their arrival. It was only then that she remembered that she had left her key on the bedside table of the room that she had been sleeping in.

“Oh shit! Anji, you idiot!” she cursed herself, slamming her fist into the closed door of the police box.

“What is the problem?” Pierre wondered. “You know that those things will be down here any second!”

“The intention was to hide in the TARDIS, but we can’t get in because I don’t have my key.” Anji explained.

“What? This box? We would never have all fit in there and it would not have kept them out for long.” Pierre replied.

“You’d be surprised!” Anji told him with a wry smile. “Anyway, it’s useless to us now. It looks like we’ll have to make a stand here.”

The sergeant and his remaining soldiers were taking the time that they had to reload their muskets and Pierre did the same with his pistol. Then they stood with their backs to the TARDIS and waited for the first of the zombies to come.

The Master quickly regained his senses after the Doctor’s punch. He sat up, rubbing his jaw with a wry smile. The Doctor was standing over him with gawky looking human standing beside him. In one hand he held the Tissue Compression Eliminator, pointed at the Master, and in the other there was the scroll.

“Very good, Doctor. I have to say that I didn’t see that one coming.” The Master said. “I see you’ve found my scroll.”

“Yes.” The Doctor replied, the TCE unwavering. “I’ve been having a look at it. It’s a Carrionite scroll isn’t it. Is this what you used to raise the dead?”

“You already know that it is.” The Master told him.

“And this will return them to death as well?” the Doctor asked.

The Master just looked at the Doctor with a smile that said ‘I’m not telling’.

“Let’s say that I believe you when you say that you’re planning to leave Earth after those French soldiers are dead. Why? What do you stand to achieve from their deaths?” the Doctor wondered.

“Absolutely nothing at all, my dear Doctor.” The Master chuckled. “This is merely a rehearsal for the main event.”

“What do you mean?” Fitz asked.

“I came upon this Carrionite scroll for the resurrection of the dead completely by accident, but once I had it and I learned what it could do a rather delicious plan formed in my head. You know how prevalent the notion of a ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ becomes in the twenty-first Century. There are people in that era that have seriously contemplated what they would do if such an apocalypse were ever to occur. It’s always amused me and now I have it in my power to make those fears a reality. All this here is just a test run to see if the scroll works and as you can see it does… beautifully!” the Master explained.

“How do I reverse the scroll’s power?” the Doctor demanded.

Again the Master chose silence.

“What are we going to do, Doctor?” Fitz wondered. “Can you decipher the scroll yourself?”

“Given time, yes, but time is one thing that we do not have!” the Doctor snarled in frustration. He hurled the scroll to the floor.

Then he fired the Tissue Compression Eliminator.

 

Anji and the French soldiers fought a desperate battle against the encroaching undead, stabbing and thrusting with sword and bayonet. The bodies were piling up, but the defenders were starting to tire and the dead just kept coming. And then something strange happened. The dead paused as one, each of them stiffening as if stricken by some invisible force and then, still as one, they all toppled to the floor and lay still, finally returned to death and at peace.

“What happened?” Anji wondered; her hand paused in mid-thrust.

 

The Doctor and Fitz looked down at the shrunken and shrivelled remains of the scroll that lay on the ground.

“Do you think that worked?” Fitz was asking.

“I certainly hope so.” The Doctor replied.

“Even if it did, your friend and those soldiers will already be dead!” the Master gloated. He was now back on his feet now that the TCE was no longer pointed at him.

It was then that Fitz saw Anji emerge from the villa, closely followed by Pierre and his surviving men.

“You were saying.” Fitz grinned.

Then the Master was shoving the Doctor to the ground, causing him to drop the TCE.

The Master scooped up the fallen weapon and ran off into the trees.

Fitz made to run after him.

“Let him go, Fitz. He’s armed and I’ve always preferred you tall and skinny to short and dead.” The Doctor told him with a wry grin.

Fitz came back and helped the Doctor to his feet.

“Well we can’t stay here now.” Fitz remarked sullenly. “I prefer my Spanish villas to be corpse free, call me picky, but it’s just the way I am.”

“We can’t just leave them all lying in there.” The Doctor rebuked gently.

“You mean?” Fitz began.

“You guessed it.” The Doctor confirmed.

 

It took several hours to remove all the corpses from the villa and the Doctor used a special tool from the TARDIS to quickly dig a grave big enough to incorporate them all. The same tool was then used to fill the hole in and Pierre helped Anji to fashion a cross out of wood that they planted into the ground to mark the burial site. Once this grim task had been completed the Doctor, Fitz and Anji bid farewell to Lieutenant Charron, Sergeant Lavigne and the three surviving soldiers who left to try and re-join the French army.

“What now?” Fitz asked after they’d gone.

“Well, we do have a holiday to finish. I still need to get through the complete works of J. K. Rowling.” The Doctor reminded them.

“Not here though.” Anji insisted.

“Then where?” Fitz wondered.

The Doctor smirked. “How about the Eye of Orion?”

 

**The End**


End file.
